This week, we discuss the metagame of product design, thinking out loud about the skills we do in between the craft work that help us to be more effective, have more impact, and grow faster in our careers. As always, we dig into followup, talk about some fleeting news, and share our cool things of the week!

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Huge shoutouts to our latest Very Important Pixels!

Vinnie
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Ethan

Follow-up:

Dennis Cortés rightly pointed out that design school is a great conduit for "learning the basic fundamentals" of design.

Brian ended up tweeting about the fact that he hasn't read many "core" books about design. Lots of great replies in there, if you're interested.

The Elements of Typography Style
The Elements of Graphic Design
The Elements of Color
Grid Systems in Graphic Design
The Mother of all Demos

Tweets:

Sahil Chaturvedi can't tell our voices apart. We have some tips.
Joshua Taylor's new project, Parrot is using Design Details for all their promo artwork. Thank you Josh! Check out parrot.fm.
Adam Fuhrer - a new VIP - just discovered the show. Welcome to the fam!
Gabriel Valdivia and Marshall shared their passion for Flight of the Conchords.

Think About It

Renato Dubbs says the show is fantastic and thought provoking - thank you for the kind words!

News:

Fleets have arrived: short ephemeral tweets that can't be retweeted, liked or replied to. It's Twitter's interpretation of Stories, and we are intrigued.

Listener Question:

Paweł Sysiak asks: "What are in your opinion “meta skills” and “boring fundamentals” of the product design currently?"

In reference to To Get Good, Go After the Metagame.

Cool Things:

Brian shared Jojo Rabbit, a satire by Taika Waititi. It's about a young boy in Hitler's army who finds out his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their home.
Marshall shared Locke and Key, a new drama on Netflix, based on a comic book series of the same name by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez.

Related watching: What We Do in the Shadows.

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🎙 Brian is @brian_lovin and [email protected]
🎙 Marshall is @marshallbock and [email protected]

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Auf wiedersehen!

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